Kyle Larson Wins Third NASCAR Cup Series Title After Remarkable Chase Turnaround

admin · November 9, 2026 · 4 min read

Illustration of a stock car racing around an oval track at sunset with a checkered flag

Kyle Larson is a three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion. The 34-year-old from Elk Grove, California, sealed his latest title on Sunday, November 8, at Homestead-Miami Speedway, completing one of the most dramatic turnarounds in recent NASCAR history.

Larson clinched the championship early — at the end of Stage 1 of the season finale — by finishing fourth in the opening segment and collecting seven stage points. That was enough to put the title mathematically out of reach of his two remaining rivals, Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin. Ryan Blaney went on to win the race itself with a last-lap pass of Tyler Reddick, but the day belonged to Larson.

A title decided before the halfway mark

Larson entered the finale with a 67-point lead over Bell and a 70-point advantage over Hamlin. He needed only nine points to guarantee the championship, or a finish of 28th or better without stage points. The maths were settled quickly. When Chase Briscoe’s engine failed on Lap 78 and brought out a caution to end Stage 1, Larson was running fourth. Bell finished the stage third and Hamlin sixth, and neither could catch him from there.

Larson went on to finish 12th in the 267-lap, 400-mile race after brushing the wall and dealing with nose damage following contact on pit road. The final margin was 49 points over Bell and 56 over Hamlin.

“All three mean something way different,” Larson said after the race. “The first one being your first. Doing it the way we did was extra special.”

From winless to champion

What makes this title stand out is how unlikely it looked only two months ago. Larson went the entire 26-race regular season without a victory, carrying a 51-race winless drought into September. Hamlin entered the Chase — the 10-race postseason, which returned in 2026 with a single points reset and a 16-car field — as the dominant top seed, 55 points ahead of seventh-seeded Larson.

Then the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet came alive. Larson won at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway to end the drought, then opened the postseason with finishes of fifth, first, second, first and second — the best five-race start in the format’s history, according to Racing Insights. At Kansas Speedway he swept both stages, led 235 laps and scored the maximum 76 points.

There were setbacks along the way. A tire failure at Phoenix dropped him to 34th and cut his championship lead to five points. But at Talladega he produced his first career superspeedway victory, a last-lap charge that stretched his lead back to 73 points. A ninth-place finish at Martinsville set up the comfortable margin he carried into Homestead.

A place among the greats

Larson is now the 11th driver in NASCAR history to win at least three Cup Series championships, joining Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Tony Stewart and Joey Logano, among others. He is also the first driver to win back-to-back titles since Jimmie Johnson completed his run of five straight in 2010.

The championship is the record 16th Cup title for Hendrick Motorsports, following four with Jeff Gordon, seven with Johnson, and one each with Terry Labonte and Chase Elliott. Larson’s three titles came in 2021, 2025 and 2026 — each in a very different way. In 2021 he dominated with 10 wins. In 2025 he survived a dramatic finale. In 2026 he recovered from a winless regular season with a sustained postseason surge.

What happens next

The Cup Series now goes quiet until 2027. The next race that counts will be the Daytona 500 on February 21, 2027, with the preseason Clash scheduled for February 13 at Daytona International Speedway. Larson heads into the offseason as the sport’s reigning champion for a second straight year.